


the things one learns about oneself

by PikaCheeka



Category: DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel)
Genre: M/M, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 12:19:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13166775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PikaCheeka/pseuds/PikaCheeka
Summary: He can't decide if he wants to know Trip or not.Because the more one learns about another, the more one learns about oneself.





	the things one learns about oneself

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about a month ago, had it titled and ready to go! Until I got distracted and re-opened it tonight and made it a few hundred words longer with a new title and summary. Once again, playing with headcanons a bit different than my usual fic. This time, ViTri have some respectable difference between them (and nobody's a slut! wow!) This was really fun to write and there MIGHT be a sequel eventually. I can envision a fun one.

He freezes, eyes wide, and it takes him a moment to realize his hand is flat over his mouth, his fingers twitching. _Shock_. This is what shock feels like. He hasn't felt it in a long time, nearly ten years as a lab rat having worn away any sense of surprise or horror at the human condition that he might have been born with. Life is remarkably easy after that. _And easily taken away._

Virus hears it go in, hears it withdrawn, but he only catches the glint of steel when it's too late to speak, too late to stop him. Trip is silent as he does it, nonchalant, as if he were cutting into his food.

No, not cutting, but _stabbing_. It's a very particular sound, a sound he won't forget anytime soon, a knife going into someone's gut, scraping against a jacket zipper before that soft sound, and the way the serrated edges catch on muscle and skin as it’s pulled out. He must be making a noise of his own. Gasping, keening, he doesn't know, but it makes Trip react, draws his attention, whatever it is.

When he turns, he does so slowly, twisting his upper torso with a vicious gleam in his eye, his voice belligerent. "What?"

He opens and closes his mouth once or twice before finding the air to speak. He already knows the answer as he softly speaks, "Is he dead?"

Trip swings back to glance at the man on the ground. "Uhm. Will be in a minute." He sounds bored.

"Huh." He doesn't know what to say. He can't recall the last time he'd been at a loss for words. Death is nothing new; he's seen it enough, at the institute, often with Trip right beside him, that he isn't phased by the concept when it happens to others. But the _manner_. He'd always known Trip was violent, brutal, but this calmness when killing is unexpected.

He remembers the fear that had flooded his senses when he'd first turned around and realized Trip was behind him that day so many years ago, the day they met, because he was afraid Trip would hit him, would bite him, attack him, the way he lashed out and attacked everyone else around him. A fear that he now realizes has never entirely left him; it has only lingered in the back of his mind, walled up with all the fears of his childhood that he'd learned to lock away so many years ago. No, it never left. Just as the shock and horror at everything awful in the world never left. _I have always been afraid of him._ He doesn't know what to do with this realization. _Has anything ever really changed? I'm still afraid. I'm still the scared one. He's still the violent one. He's just not obvious about it anymore. I guess I should have known. The knives... when he cut up people we had sex with and said it was just a blood fetish, a little BDSM fun even if the girl screams or says she doesn’t want it. I should have known. I should have known._

"You've grown," he finally speaks.

"Hm."

"You're getting better about not losing your temper." A fact at once pleasing and unnerving. Trip flies into mindless rages fall less often these days, but he can also now kill someone without his pulse going above sixty.

"Guess so." He pauses. "Except."

Virus is silent, but he tilts his head faintly to the side, beckoning him to go on.

"I still get mad, you know. Lose my temper just as often. Just don't show it much anymore. Not even my heartrate changes. So." He nudges the body with his swat boot, pushes it up half an inch and stares down at the blood pooling beneath it. "People don't know when they piss me off. Surprise." He lifts his foot and the body rolls back. "Surprise."

He doesn't draw back when Trip turns and steps towards him. There is an easy lope to his walk, not one of laziness but of confidence, a swagger reminiscent of his allmate pacing the apartment. An apex predator. He hunches his shoulders and drops his head when he moves, making his height appear the same as Virus, who walks and stands straight and tall. He doesn’t draw back, but _something_ must be apparent in his face.

Trip stops a few steps in front of him and slowly lights a cigarette before speaking. "Ain't the first person I killed, what's the big deal?"

 _This is the man I live with, I work with, I eat with, I bathe with. I don't lock my bedroom door at night. I fall asleep on the couch in the living room sometimes. I thought I knew him. I should have gotten to know him more before letting him follow me as much as he does.... No. It's better this way. I don't want to know him. We don't need to know each other. We just need to work together, and know we get along, that we do the same things - but I don't do this, not this..._ He's fairly certain there's a quaver to his voice that he hopes Trip fails to notice when he speaks, "It's...not?"

"No." He hesitates. "I do stuff for our other boss, just like you do. Yakuza work."

"You kill whoever they ask you to?"

"Yep...disappear people, too. Nobody important though."

"Huh." _Like it's nothing. Not that I'm any different. Because he and I are alike, because people exist as tools, because we use anyone and everyone around us. That's why we get along, isn't it?_ "So who would you consider...important?"

"You mean, what if they asked me to off Toue or the Seragakis or whatever?"

Or me. But he doesn't say it. "Yea."

"I'd do it, maybe. Or maybe not. Depends on my mood, I guess, and the money. If I’m bored with them." He drops the cigarette after only a few puffs and stomps it out. "I wouldn't do it to you, if that's what you're thinking."

"Ah..." The relief surprises him. _I really thought he might do it then. I have spent most of my life beside someone who I unconsciously believed might kill me for no reason whatsoever. The things one learns about oneself._

"I might fuck you though."

He startles violently.

He bursts out laughing. "Your face. You almost pissed yourself."

"Yes, well-" It's as far as he gets. Because Trip is on him before he can even draw another breath, a battering ram slamming him against the brick wall of the alley behind him. _God it was a lie, wasn't it? A lie. He is going to kill me, after all. All this time I thought we complemented each other but he never told me why he chose me, why he follows me everywhere. He never explained it properly and I never pushed and I should have because now..._

He kisses him. Virus is slow to respond, merely drops his jaw in horror and confusion to let Trip explore his mouth before fully comprehending the situation. And there's almost that...relief again. _Oh god oh god. This isn't what I expected. I should tell him to stop. I should tell him to stop._ But he doesn’t.

He can feel his hardness against him and is unsure if it's from the kiss or the stabbing; he isn't sure if he cares either, because the end result will be the same. Aroused Trip is even more unpredictable than bored Trip. At some point he moans, and the younger man noticeably tightens his grip on him. He feels a hand slipping down his back, hesitating only a moment before grabbing his ass hard enough to cause him to jerk a foot up, kick the wall. Trip shifts, digs his left shoulder into Virus to hold him still as he drops his hand to squeeze him between the legs, bringing a whimper of self-actualization from him. _I'm hard. I'm hard. The things one learns about oneself…_

"Mmm," Trip sighs, and grins. And then he's between his thighs, lifting him up entirely. Virus gasps, hooking his legs around his hips, because he can't keep up. The younger man is too strong, too assertive. _And I'm hard. I'm hot. I'm turned on by this. Then it hits him. No. I've been hard, even before he did this. Maybe that's why he's doing this. Seeing him kill is what did it... So we are the same after all. Even if I never actually kill. Even if I just kill by proxy, convince others to do the deed themselves. Because I’m even more of a power maniac than Trip is. Because I like to capture the precise moment when hope dies. We are all reduced to meat trying to survive in the end. Like me. Now._

And just as he's starting to accept it, Trip pulls his head back, relaxes his grip on his ass but continues to press him to the wall, his erection hard against Virus' own arousal. "Okay," he grins, and Virus finds himself focusing on the dimple in his left cheek, the saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth. _I wonder who that belongs to. Me or him? And does it matter? Aren't we the same now? And yet he's doing this. He's going to fuck me and probably kill me._ He doesn’t like how fast his mind works sometimes, wishes he could just shut it down as Trip had told him he himself could after one particularly horrible doctor’s appointment a few years ago. He’d said he’d always been able to do that, ever since he was six or seven. Just shut it all off.

 _Six or seven._ He moves slowly, almost without thinking, and curls his fingers in Trip's hair to massage his scalp. It's what he'd always done, back when they were children, whenever the younger boy acted out. Whenever he got violent. _It's how I control him._

But it doesn't work.

"I want you." It's only a whisper against his neck but the accompanying thrust of his hips against him tells Virus everything. “You had that look, when you asked if I’d do you in. Turned me on.”

"Okay." A startled, stupid response. He's still too scared to even fight it. He knows then that he won't resist. Trip can fuck him right now and he'll let it happen. _But he isn’t going to do it._ Like all the times when they were younger, when one or both of them were horny teenagers who needed to wet their dicks every six hours and sometimes the only person around was the other. They never did it then, regardless of how many longing looks Trip shot him or how often they jerked off in front of each other. _He can’t do it. He won’t do it. Right?_ Still… He’d never attacked him like this before. "You're joking, right?"

He laughs then, but the words send an unexpected thrill through Virus. "You’re cute when you're vulnerable and scared. That’s all."

"Yea." He's hyperventilating. "Yea okay. Put me down."

He hesitates, his gaze boring into Virus' eyes until the older man wants nothing more than to look away.

And then he obeys. Sometimes he's grateful that Trip chose him. It's good, because he needs to give him another command. He clings to Trip's biceps and whispers, "Stay here a minute. My legs..."

His legs are shaking too violently for him to stand; it's all he can do to hang onto Trip's arms, press his face to his shoulder and breathe. He closes his eyes to focus, but it isn’t enough. He can still taste him in his mouth, still feel his erection pressed against his stomach, still smell the metallic tang of blood in the air, still hear his heartbeat.

At one point his curiosity gets the better of him. He pushes a hand inside of his half-zipped sweatshirt and runs it over Trip's chest, lingering over his heart.

"Your heartrate's faster now."

"'Cause we just made out. And you're touching me."

"So killing someone doesn't affect you but touching me does?"

He shrugs. Virus can feel it in his pecs.

It isn't something he's prepared to think about. He pushes Trip back then, and the younger man steps back a few paces. Virus’ clothes are mussed, jacket wrinkled and shirt half-untucked, which he quickly fixes as he works his jaw. "Think we need to clean this up?"

"Naw. I wore gloves. Nobody's gonna look. Anyway, knives're harder to trace than guns." The way he says it makes it clear he's making a dig.

Because Virus uses a gun, has one in a shoulder holster right now, one that he hadn’t even thought about all night. _Even when I thought he was going to rape me._ It’s an unsettling thought. "Let's go then."

"You okay?"

"Yea. Fine." He bites his lip, twists his jaw, and breathes out through a corner of his mouth. Trip’s being genuine there. _He's always genuine when he asks about me like that. You okay? Are you happy? You all right? The same things he's been asking since he was six, with the same expression on his face, even if he himself is the one who made me not-okay._

Trip drives, as he usually does, and Virus sits in the passenger seat and is silent. He keeps his eyes downcast, occasionally flicks his gaze over to Trip, his thighs, his hands on the steering wheel. He doesn’t want to look higher, see his face or his mouth. The younger man chews gum, as he often does when driving, a diversion to keep him from clenching his jaw too hard when in traffic. He has enough capped molars after cracking so many in rage. Gold caps that Virus had only recently felt with his tongue.

Virus licks his lips, raises a hand up to touch them. "Can you still taste me?" he blurts it out before he can stop himself.

"For real?" He glances briefly at him, grinning triumphantly from only one side of his mouth.

"You worried about that? No taste left. I can still feel your tongue in my mouth though."

"Huh."

The next few minutes pass in silence as Trip pulls into their apartment's parking lot, turns the car off with his usual flourish.

He swings the keys as he steps into the elevator. "Your tongue's cute. And you're a pretty good kisser. I didn't expect you to reciprocate that way."

"Yea well. What was I supposed to do?"

"Dunno. Bite me?" He shrugs and grins as they step into the apartment. "Speaking of which, you hungry?"

"No." _Because I can still taste you._

"Okay, I'm gonna eat though."

"Have fun." He bumps Trip as he brushes past, headed towards the hallway and his bedroom.

Trip scarcely moves, lifts a few fingers by his thigh and hooks then into Virus' jacket pocket. He doesn't meet his eyes when he asks. "I was kidding, you know?"

Virus acts reflexively, squeezes his hand, and as he does he slides his index finger up to press against the pulse in the younger man's wrist and silently counts before responding. "Yea I know."

He gently pushes Virus towards his room then before turning towards the kitchen. Immediately relaxed. He knows Virus won’t lie to him. "'Kay. Nighty then."

"Good night." Virus heads towards his room and slips inside as quickly as he can without drawing Trip's attention. He leans his back against the bedroom door and fingers the lock. They've never used locks with one another, not even when in the bathroom. Because they complement one another. They're perfect together. They think as one.

 _You’re cute when you're vulnerable and scared. That’s all._ They think as one, _until_. They can only be so protected from their own sadism. Maybe that vulnerability awakens something.

 _I was kidding, you know?_ His pulse had still been up when he'd said that. Too high. He remembers the feeling of his erection when he had him up against the wall, remembers the rapid beating of his heart a moment later. Yes, that vulnerability awakens something. Something in _both_ of them, because Virus now remembers his own arousal, the excitement amidst the fear. _The things one learns about oneself…_

As his fingers turn the lock, he knows he isn’t only locking Trip out. They think as one, after all.

 


End file.
